Galena Programs

Program Services

The Nevada Conservation Corps provides valuable resource management services throughout the intermountain western region of the United States in the form of Conservation & Restoration Crews and Agency Interns and Field Technicians.

Trail Building and Maintenance

The NCC provides professional quality trail building and maintenance assistance for our states recreational managers. Our programs can assist agencies with trail lay out, construction, and maintenance projects, including the construction of major trail features (e.g. bridges, culverts, stairs, and retaining walls, etc.). In addition to constructing new trail, the NCC has worked closely with the Tahoe Rim Trail Association and the USFS to maintain existing recreational trails and improve upon their quality by upgrading erosion control structures, clearing trail corridors, repairing tread, and rebuilding rock structures. Our crews can spike in the backcountry for up to 16 days and have utilized horse pack services to work in remote locations. Each trail crew includes a supervisor specializing in trail work, a crew leader, and eight crew members with all trail tools required for the project. If you’ve hiked trail in Nevada, there is a good chance the NCC has either built or maintained the path you’ve been on. Our partners include Great Basin National Park, Nevada State Parks, Bureau of Land Management, US Forest Service and the Tahoe Rim Trail Association.

Forest Fuels Reduction & Exotic Species Eradication

The NCC provides year-round sawyer crews to support agencies across our state, specializing in small diameter thinning projects and exotic species eradication. The NCC saw program provides safe, high-quality forestry support with certified sawyers and professional-level equipment. Our experienced fuels crews are self-contained and offer a complete range of services from timber stand inventorying and chemical applications to on-site chipping and biomass removal. Our forestry program has thinned over 3,000 acres at large-scale project sites with the US Forest Service, Nevada Division of Forestry, the National Park Service, and the Nevada Fire Safe Council.

For the US Forest Service’s Humboldt-Toiyabe Carson District, crews have completed the third and final phase of Mountain Mahogany reduction at White Creek Canyon – a much frequented drainage of the Mount Rose Wilderness Area. Just over the hill, NCC crews, in partnership with Nevada Division of Wildlife and Forestry, continue to thin out conifer trees in the north canyon of East Lake Tahoe to help restore critical aspen habitat. This EIP funded, long-term fuels reduction effort, will continue through the summer. Also, throughout the Tahoe Basin, crews have partnered with US Forest Service’s Urban Lots Management program, thinning stands along the wildland-urban interface, reducing fire danger and protecting Tahoe homes. Additional community fire reduction projects continue with the Nevada Fire Safe Council throughout the northwest region.
In southern Nevada, extensive tamarisk removal efforts continue at Death Valley National Park and public lands administered by BLM Las Vegas and Lake Mead National Recreation Area. Lake Mead’s Exotic Plant Management Team has become a perennial partner in the ongoing effort to control the spread of tamarisk throughout the southern region. Also, the NCC began thinning along the Virgin river this year, combining chainsaw work with herbicide application to mitigate the effects of wide spread exotic species.

Arid Land, Fire & Riparian Restoration

The NCC arid land, fire and riparian restoration teams offer a wide range of assistance for desert, forest and wetlands rehabilitation initiatives. NCC crews are experienced with reseeding, planting, and re-vegetation techniques, and restoring disturbed areas. The teams are efficient and effective and are capable of spike camping at the site of disturbance. Equipped with a full complement of hand tools for planting and reseeding, our crews can cover substantial treatment areas with 4WD vehicles to access difficult backcountry sites. Crews now travel throughout the state, restoring desert tortoise habitat, eradicating invasive plants, obliterating illegal wilderness roads, and planting and reseeding thousands of native species to mitigate fire and human caused disturbances. NCC teams have successfully advanced new partnerships with the BLM and NPS field offices, working closely with upland and riparian restorationists to restore Mojave and Great Basin desert habitats.

Work also continues with the BLM Winnemucca Field Office where significant progress was made restoring Solider Meadows and illegal incursions in the Black Rock Wilderness and High Rock Canyon areas. BLM Ely Field Office brought crews to treat similar disturbances in Duck Creek. In southern Nevada, a significant amount of restoration has occurred at Lake Mead where crews have spent the fall and winter eradicating Athel – an exotic hybrid that threatens to outcompete native flora around the lake. Crews have traversed the lake by land and water in an attempt to eliminate this particularly tenacious species. Over 100,000 plants were treated this season alone. Sahara Mustard, another wide spread invasive species, is also being treated by our crews throughout Lake Mead lands.